Mumbai Diary: Monday Dossier

The innovative device. Pic/Uday Devrukhkar

The BEST idea
Look around in a bus or train, and you would find most of your co-passengers glued to screens, texting or watching a movie. But this ingenious man, spotted by our in-house photo expert in a BESTâu00c2u0080u00c2u0088bus, had something far more interesting going on. With an attachment drivers often use in cars for navigation, he'd clipped his phone onto the seat in front of him and was enjoying his daily fill of news, hands-free. Now, we'll be trying this out very soon.

He's a cool guy

Pic/Nimesh Dave

As part of the promotions for his latest movie, actor Ajay Devgn was seen with a popular animated character at a mall in Malad over the weekend.

MoMA meets Dharavi
Among the many curious onlookers at the Dharavi Museum's recently concluded exhibit, Waterproof Project, was Paola Antonelli, senior curator of New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). Last Thursday, when Antonelli made a trip to this mobile museum showcasing tarpaulin bags and belts made by the leather workers of Dharavi, she was greatly taken in by what she saw.

Antonelli (left) with Saraiya

She met the co-founder Kruti Saraiya for coffee just to tell her how much she loved the idea of a mobile museum that topples the very concept of the museum as an institution. "It's interesting coming from her, a person at the zenith of a stalwart institution like MoMA. You don't expect someone of that stature to be so down-to-earth," says Saraiya.

Antonelli, who is currently working on her next exhibition called Items: Is Fashion Modern, is in the city for research. The pashmina and the sari from India have piqued her interest and, we hear, she has been going around town asking the ladies what kind of sari they like the most. After doing the rounds of Delhi and Ahmedabad, the island city is her last stop, before she heads back to the Big Apple.

Arthur Morris' baggy green cap is intact
Last week in the dossier, we reported on how our in-house cricket nut discovered in a 50-year-old Sport & Pastime issue that Arthur Morris (part of Don Bradman's 1948 Invincibles) gifted his baggy green cap to former India batsman Hanumant Singh.

Arthur Morris' baggy green cap treasured by the late India batsman Hanumant Singh and now, by his son Sangram

Morris' act of generosity was triggered by the then young batsman's impressive 140 and 61 in a charity match at the Brabourne Stadium in 1964, but a recent book on the history of baggy green caps published in Australia could only refer to Hanumant as "a young Indian boy" presumably because Morris could not recollect his name to the authors.

We wondered in our little story whether Hanumant had treasured the gift. We got a confirmation from the late Hanumant's son Sangram Singh. A former junior Mumbai cricketer himself, Sangram sent us a picture of Morris' baggy green with the words, "I have the green baggy with me! My dad didn't let me wear it; even to try it on. He said stuff like this had to be earned! I think he never wore it himself. He just treasured it!" That's typical of Hanumant, who played with a straight bat on and off the field.

No surprises there, Mr Dalrymple!
Historian, travel writer and journalist William Dalrymple, who divides his time between Delhi and London, and has extensively written on India, recently found an entry in the Oxford Concise Companion to English Literature devoted to him.

"Characterised by their deep historical research and elegant prose, his works have placed him at the forefront of a new generation of British travel writers..." goes the entry.

Rather surprised to find his name in the publication, the author tweeted: "…I thought you had to fall off your perch before they embalmed you in this." Well, not all honours are posthumous. And we certainly aren't surprised.

So that no kid goes hungry this Diwali
After fashion designers and TV personalities, as the dossier reported last week, it's the food industry's turn to do its bit during the festive season. Dineout, a restaurant table-booking app, will be donating '30 for every reservation made through it to India Food Banking.

Chef Kunal Kapur

The non-profit, in turn, will be serving meals in schools for underprivileged children. To give the campaign the heft it needs, celebrity chef Kunal Kapur has been roped in, who is more than happy to be associated with the cause.